Lotus Ethos: the hybrid city car gets the green light, arrives in 2013

03/08/2011

Now owned by Proton, the English brand has announced the release of its range-extended city car. Presented at the 2010 Paris Motor Show, the Lotus Ethos (formerly known as City Car) received the green light and will come in 2013.

“The city car concept is now confirmed for production,”

“That’s called the Lotus Ethos, and it’s due about 2013.”

Lotus spokesman Alastair Florance

The car will be produced by Proton, probably along its half sister, the Proton Emas ... Both vehicles should be different with their own personnality and Lotus will work personally on the engineering of its model, in short, according to Mr. Florance it will not be just a rebadged Proton.

“We’ll work extensively on the engineering – the Lotus version will be very much a Lotus,” “But I believe there will be a Proton version.”

Larger than a Smart or a Toyota iQ the Ethos is very compact

It will be fitted with the engine presented in the City Car concept, a plug-in hybrid range extender powertrain, the electric motor of 54kW (73hp) and 240Nm of torque is powered by a 14.8 kWh battery, once discharged a 1.2l flex-fuel three cylinder engine is used as a generator and can offer a total range of 500km.

On the performance side it correspond to its segment, the 0-100kph takes 9 seconds and top speed stands at 170kph with emissions of just 60g/km, autonomy in electric only is 60km.

The Lotus Ethos would be one of the first compact vehicle to use the range extender technology and will compete with (whose official launch has not been announced yet) the Audi A1 e-tron and the Suzuki Swift Plug-In